Matters of a Domestic Nature
by orsa-verba
Summary: He was such a little psycho. Quentin adored him. [ Spiderio ] [ Quentin / Peter ] [ Peterbeck ]


With a frown, Quentin stood straight. He shook the bottle of coffee creamer and was displeased to find that there was barely enough swishing around the jug for two cups of coffee. Definitely not enough for refills.

"Damn." he sighed to himself.

It was their own fault for slacking on stocking up the kitchenette. Ah, well. One of them would have to take a break and make a run to the grocery store at some point tonight.

Quentin filled two mugs with freshly brewed coffee, topping off both with the remaining creamer and dumping two spoonfuls of sugar into his own. As he stirred, he considered what else they might be running low on. Was it worth making a shopping list?

He tossed the empty creamer bottle into the recycling and picked up the coffees, then made his way slowly deeper into the loft.

This particular living space had been a great find for them, almost perfect, really. Tucked deep into the industrial part of the city, the converted warehouse sat right by the river with an incredible view of the city skyline. With thick stone walls and high, vaulted ceilings, it was just industry-rustic enough to put off more wary renters.

Quentin loved it. The front door was massive and heavy, and opened directly onto the living room space, which also housed the kitchenette. A wall had been constructed, blocking out the next area into a spacious bathroom on one side and a storage room, or small office, on the other. The straight hallway then branched into two wide, empty rooms, one with windows, one without.

They had politely dubbed the room without windows their "workroom".

Before they moved in Quentin had requested the installation of an attractive metal door with two locks, on the basis that they'd be using the space to store expensive tools and the extra security would make them feel better. Since the rest of the space was mostly without doors and extraneous trappings, and Quentin offered a handsome stipend for his trouble, the landlord cheerfully agreed. While they were out they kept the door closed and securely locked, each of them carrying one of the keys. When they were home, the door stood wide open.

The room with windows had been turned into their bedroom. Quentin had insisted on a new, larger bed when they moved in, to replace the cramped double they'd been using before. Their king sized bed was most often in disarray, as they rarely remembered to make it after they got up. Laundry day felt very sophisticated now, being the only day they made up the bed.

It was little things like that that really made Quentin smile. Enjoying laundry day because it meant crawling into a made bed together, turning down the sheets and lying on fresh pillowcases. So mundane. So wonderful.

He'd never considered himself a man of domestic inclinations before he fell in love. The act of furnishing his living space, keeping it clean and well-adorned, was a given. It was the little facets of togetherness that came with a home shared between lovers that still bemused him. Like two cups of coffee, prepared just right, and leaning against doorways gazing at his better half.

Yet there he was, coffee in hand and shoulder pressed to the doorframe so he could observe Peter at work.

Peter hadn't noticed his approach, the whole of his attention fixed on the open notebook balanced on his knees. From this angle, Quentin couldn't tell if he was sketching or making notations, but every now and then he'd tap his pencil in three rapid strikes, then spin it between the fingers of his left hand. This was a familiar, endearing habit.

Recently, he'd switched shampoos, which had made his natural curls all the more prominent. They bounced every time he lifted his head to observe the woman lying naked and restrained on the table in front of him.

Peter's curiosity was fascinating to watch. Quentin's exploratory phase came and went years ago, leaving him comfortably knowledgeable with his craft. Peter, though. His journey of self-discovery was still in its budding stages. He was all inquisitive eyes and seeking hands, lips tugged between his teeth or shaped around muttered observations.

Remarkably, he possessed the self control to be meticulous. When it had been Quentin taking his first lives, he'd been young and reckless. Things like patience and consideration for caution were lessons learned later in life. Peter was a special breed.

"Have I mentioned lately what a marvel you are?" Quentin mused, pushing off the doorframe at last.

Peter jumped, startled, but smiled anyway.

"Only all the time." he teased. "Thanks."

They shared a brief kiss as Quentin handed over Peter's coffee. He straightened himself, hand on the back of Peter's chair and looked down at their latest victim.

"So I see she woke up while I was gone."

"Huh?" Peter peeked over the rim of his mug. "Oh. Yeah, guess she did. Sorry, I was, you know."

He gestured vaguely at his miniscule, handwritten notes. Quentin did know. He smiled affectionately and pecked another kiss onto Peter's hair.

"Find anything interesting?"

"Thirty seven moles, two closed piercings, a tattoo from at least a decade ago and a couple track marks between her toes." Peter smiled as Quentin grimaced. "They're old, though."

"Good."

Drug addicts were beneath them. They had their place as prey, of course. Easy marks for beginners and lazy days when the effort of setting a trap really was asking too much, but it had been years since he'd intentionally gone after a user. Withdrawal was only so fun to watch after the sixth or seventh time.

Quentin sipped his coffee and walked around the table to a set of shelves on the left side of the room. He set his mug down, then started thumbing through a row of alphabetized records.

"Any requests, pretty boy?"

Peter hummed thoughtfully.

"Let's go with _The 1975_."

"Any album in particular?"

"Surprise me!"

Quentin plucked a record from the line and slid it free, spinning it between his hands as he walked over to the record player. It was a modern version of the classic, as digitized as it could get without transitioning over to CD. Onto the turntable the record went.

The machine clicked when turned on and the song _Girls_ began to pour from the speakers. Quentin adjusted the volume, lowering it so they could talk above the music.

Peter had shut his notebook, pencil marking his place, and gotten up. He retrieved his camera and began to mess with the settings, checking things through the lens every few seconds until he was satisfied. The sound of the shutter made the woman jump and yank at her restraints.

"I like this song."

"I know you do." Quentin chuckled.

He spun through the discography loaded onto a sleek silver iPod until he found the album they were listening to and selected it.

"We're going to have to make a grocery run."

"Tonight?" Peter frowned.

"Yeah. Out of coffee creamer." Quentin slid a pair of bulky, DJ quality headphones onto the woman's head. She shook as violently as she could, but the earpieces were half the size of her skull and there was no escaping them. "And _someone_ ate all the chocolate pudding."

"It was you."

Quentin laughed and turned the volume on the iPod all the way up.

The woman shrieked.

"Yikes." Peter winced. "She's got a pair of lungs."

Which was why they had gags. The muzzle they agreed on had the added benefit of not only paneling over the woman's mouth, but harnessing over the top of her head and the band of the headphones, keeping them in place.

Quentin dragged a second chair over to the table and settled down with his coffee, while Peter resumed snapping pictures. He didn't share his partner's penchant for photography, nor did he really understand it. To him it was an unnecessary risk and a great deal of potential evidence. But it was a part of Peter's process and an _important_ part at that. So he allowed it.

"Hey Quin? If she's boring on the inside, can we pick up someone new?"

"What, tomorrow? No. It's too soon."

Peter shot him an irritated frown, camera hovered just below his chin.

"But _Quin_..." he intoned, dragging out the vowels.

"No." Quentin said firmly, shaking his head once for emphasis. "Besides, baby, we decided to pick her up because... Why _did_ we decide on her?"

"Don't remember."

"Huh."

There was nothing particularly appealing about her, physically. Maybe it had been something she was wearing when they found her. Peter often accused him of having the eye of a magpie, always drawn to bright and shiny things. He would check, but they had incinerated her belongings days ago.

It didn't really matter, Quentin supposed. They'd had the room locked all week while Quentin had to work overtime on a project someone had mishandled at work. She could have been literally _any _living body and they would be just as excited to get started.

Though, the fact that Peter was already thinking of their next plaything did concern him. Preoccupying Peter's brilliant mind was a task unto itself, one Quentin liked to take to with gusto, but sometimes it became problematic. If tonight left him unsatisfied, he may become impatient.

"You know why we have to wait, right?" Quentin asked.

"Too many disappearances too quickly makes people look for a pattern, even when there isn't one." Peter recited back, just like he'd been taught. "I _know_. Do we have any black widows left?"

Quentin stood up to check, coffee still in hand. The obsession with spiders was _also_ something he didn't understand. If Peter hadn't been so excellent about keeping his arachnids contained and cared for, Quentin would have tried to squash that particular fixation.

He tapped the glass of a terrarium on a high shelf. Almost immediately, black began to spill out from one of the corners. It looked like a wave of fog, if not for the hourglass underbellies and writhing legs. The mother was nowhere to be seen, but the babies spread across the terrarium until it was nearly blanketed in them.

"Yeah." he shuddered. "Don't think they're mature yet."

"Oh, that sucks." Peter sighed. "I wanted to fill her ribcage with them. I bet they would make pretty webs..."

He was such a little psycho.

Quentin _adored_ him.

"Speaking of patterns..."

Peter hummed to affirm he was listening. He had finally set his camera aside and trailed around the table to their workbench.

"I was thinking that when we're done here, we could go abroad."

"Yeah, but we've got a few more months, right?" Delicate fingers lifted an icepick thoughtfully from the array of tools. "Why decide now?"

Quentin shrugged.

"It's been on my mind."

Of the things he'd taught Peter, flexibility and movement had been the hardest for him to grapple with. Peter had been born and raised in New York City. Getting him to _leave_ had been like pulling teeth, accomplished only after months of cajoling on Quentin's part.

Over the past two years, Peter had gotten much better about picking up his life and moving it to a new city. They'd never strayed out of the United States, though, and Quentin could feel himself itching for new scenery.

Peter was biting his lip. The icepick had been replaced by a serrated combat knife, the sharp point pressed to the heel of his hand. It twisted half an inch back and forth in nervous repetition.

"I don't know..." he said slowly. "That's really far from Aunt May."

Quentin rose and joined Peter at the workbench, resting a hand on the small of his back. His smaller half swayed into him easily, trusting that Quentin would catch his weight in his palm. _The 1975_ were singing _Chocolate_ now.

"We could take her with us." Quentin offered, voice soft. He eased the knife from Peter's grip and set it back on the table. The blood on the tip was begging to be cleaned with a cloth or Quentin's tongue, but that could wait. "Set her up with an apartment in Paris. She could work from home, get to experience a foreign culture."

Peter gnawed his bottom lip. From experience, they both knew that if he kept it up it would get swollen and start bleeding. Quentin would kiss him anyway, of course.

Behind them, their victim squirmed and rattled her restraints. Irritation ticked at the back of Quentin's skull. He made a mental note to tighten the brackets before their next guest, while in the same thought he considered bashing the woman's head in with the hammer to his left. They were having an important conversation. She shouldn't be distracting them.

The only thing that stilled his impulse was Peter. His darling preferred their victims awake and reactive, he'd be terribly upset if Quentin cost them another hour waiting for her to rouse from unconsciousness. Plus, head wounds were messy and insufferably fatal for how easy they were to inflict.

Peter had snagged one of the smaller scalpels and twirled it between his fingers.

"You realize that means you'd have to meet her."

He peeked up through his bangs, then tilted his head back and looked fully up at his mentor. There was a nervous edge to his smile.

"Think you're ready to meet the parents?" he asked, almost carefully. "So to speak."

Not at all, was the answer. The very concept made Quentin twitchy and squeamish. There was no doubt he'd survive a trip to meet Peter's aunt and equal assurance he'd manage to charm her into trusting him without compunction. That didn't mean he'd _enjoy _it.

Frankly, sharing Peter's heart with _anyone_ was asking too much of Quentin Beck. It didn't matter that his love for Aunt May was familial and his love for Quentin was romantic, it still grated on Quentin's nerves. Had she not been the one tether Peter had in this world that kept him centered somewhere on the edge of humanity, he would have killed her by now.

For Peter's sake, it would have been a quick and merciful killing. Which he had planned to the last detail, then never followed through with. Love made him soft.

"I think I could be convinced to behave for an evening." he smiled down at Peter. "All I have to do is show her just how much I care for you, my little spider."

Peter flushed prettily, grinning the way he always did when Quentin called him that. He popped up on his tip-toes and sealed a kiss against Quentin's mouth, urging him to lean down for a better angle. His coaxing was obliged without complaint, the hand on his back curling into the fabric of his shirt to drag him in closer.

Quentin swiped his tongue over Peter's bottom lip. It tasted of blood. Quentin sucked it between his teeth and bit down gently, earning a faint moan of approval as he did.

When he let go, Peter's eyes had gone bright and a little glassy. A tremor of renewed enthusiasm ran through him, making his fingers twitch and grasp at the air.

"I'll think about it." Peter promised. His tongue ran over his teeth. "Can we start, please?"

Quentin's grin threatened to split his face.

"Of _course_ we can, baby."

They chose their instruments shoulder to shoulder, debating in gestures and looks over where to begin. A larger scalpel for Peter, leather gloves for Quentin. The palms had been intentionally distressed to be unpleasant on bare skin. A mocking sort of pain compared to whatever else the person was bound to experience.

One gloved hand pushed down on the woman's throat, holding her head still, while the other dragged carelessly over her body. The rough leather left red in its wake. Quentin pointed to where and Peter placed a soft hand on the woman's shoulder to brace himself.

For a moment, she almost seemed to take comfort in it.

Then, Peter pushed the scalpel into her sternum and began to drag _down_.


End file.
